Ilha Das Flores / Isle of Flowers

Image from the film Ilha Das Flores by Jorge Furtado Image from the film Ilha Das Flores by Jorge Furtado Image from the film Ilha Das Flores by Jorge Furtado Image from the film Ilha Das Flores by Jorge Furtado

Jorge Furtado | Brazil | 1989 | 12mins

Described by Jorge Furtado as a ‘letter to a Martian who knows nothing of the earth and its social systems’, Isle of Flowers uses animation, archival footage and parody to indict the distribution of wealth and food around the world. The ‘Isle of Flowers’ of the title is a garbage dump in Porte Alegre, Brazil, where starving women and children are given five minutes to scrounge for food. In structuring his work as a thesaurus of interconnected definitions, Furtado recycles the audiovisual clichés of Brazilian television commercials, stock footage, newspaper adverts and state radio while parodying the genres of the television quiz show and the educational film with its voice-over. Collage becomes an aesthetic of garbage that offers a vantage point from which to indict society.

About the artist

Jorge Furtado (1959) is a Brazilian film writer and director. He is one of the founding members of the Casa de Cinema de Porto Alegre (The House of Cinema of Porto Alegre), a cooperative film production company that was formed in 1987. Furtado's work has been honored with awards from Berlin, Hamburg, Clermont-Ferrand and in Brazil. He also writes for TV Globo shows and series such as Agosto and Memorial de Maria Moura. His most recent film is Saneamento Básico (2007).